Hong Kong’s men’s and women’s sevens teams breezed through their opening matches at the Borneo Sevens in Sabah, Malaysia on Friday. The women beat Philippines club side Eagles Select, 40-0, before the men overwhelmed local outfit, Sabah Sukma, 47-0.

Hong Kong outclassed the Eagles, spending huge swathes of the match attacking their opponents’ 22-metre line and forcing them into conceding numerous penalties and turnovers – several of which led to tries, with Hong Kong scoring four times in the first half en route to a 26-0 lead at the break.

Stephanie Chan Chor-ki and Nam Ka-man collected two tries each, with skipper Natasha Olsen-Thorne playing a key role in the victory and also scoring along with Colleen Tjosvold.

The men brushed off regional development side Sabah Sukma, 47-0, as they warmed up for day two. Hong Kong led 21-0 at half-time with forwards Kane Boucaut and Toby Fenn (two) contributing tries in the opening stanza.

Boucaut and Fenn were simply too strong for the defence with both carrying several defenders across the line on their tries. Fenn was made to work harder on his second tally, as he finished his natural brace with a spinning and whirling run over 50-metres, fending off numerous arm tackles, to cap a hot start.

Coach Paul John made liberal use of the bench as he swapped out four players after the re-start, with Russ Webb, Seb Brien, Chris Maize and Cado Lee Ka-to all coming on, followed soon thereafter by Max Denmark. Despite the changes, Hong Kong retained their form and kept the pressure on to score four more tries in the second half.

Pivot Jamie Hood set up the opening try of the half after spotting a gap in the defence from a tap and go penalty. He wasted no time in feeding a waiting Salom Yiu Kam-shing out wide with the Hong Kong flier quickly touching down for a 28-0 lead.

Chris Maize followed Yiu’s try with another punishing forward effort in the corner as he got on the board soon after coming on to the park. Webb’s conversion was successful pushing the lead to 35-0.

Seb Brien added to Sabah’s woes after weaving his way through five attempted tackles en route to a 50-metre try to bring Hong Kong’s total to 42-0.

Jack Neville produced a classy finish for Hong Kong with a devastating sidestep that wrong-footed nearly the entire defence as he strolled over as the hooter sounded.